If you only knew . . .

Just a few quick thoughts on today's daily lectionary (which can be found here:  http://gamc.pcusa.org/devotion/daily/2010/10/1/ )
Did you read today's passages?  Did you read the one from Hosea?  I would post some of it here, but I don't want this blog flagged for explicit content. 
The really interesting thing about all that is going on in this passage, and really all of Hosea, is that it is all about the incredibly sinfulness, debauchery and indecency that is going on in Israel at the time.  In several places in Hosea, including this passage, God either to Hosea or through Hosea goes into graphic detail to recount all of the ways that Israel is engaged in sin.  
Not happy times, not happy thoughts.  
But what is the point?  Why does it matter to us?  
The answer to that lies in Hosea himself.  Why did God speak to him, why did God call him to call out to Israel to repent?
The answer to that is simple and incredibly important:
The bottom line is that God knows absolutely everything we have done.  Absolutely everything we have said and God even knows all those things that we have thought about saying or doing.
God knows everything about us - is aware of every seedy, dirty, mean and selfish thing we have ever done.  
In spite of this - no, because of this - Jesus Christ, the very Son of God came into the world to bear all of our garbage on himself, so that we might be restored to a saving relationship with God.  
I think we so often allow ourselves to believe the lie that the world and the devil is telling us - the lie that if anyone knew the truth about you, the would not only stop loving you, but that they would likely be repulsed.  
The truth is that God, our creator and father knows every single corner of our lives and our minds - even the parts that we desperately try to cover up and hide.  And He loves us anyway.
God loves us anyway.  
God knows you - all of you.  Every single corner.  
God knows you and God loves you.